Let Jesus Shine in 2009!

My Mom always tries to think of some catchy phrase when she wants to remember something. Sometimes it is a musical phrase. Most times it is a rhyme. A new tradition has been started at my parents house where they host all of the granddaughters (9) at their house on New Years Eve. When I talked to her this morning (New Years day), she said that she was trying to think of a devotion theme to have with the girls. She decided to talk to them about letting the light of Christ in their lives shine bright in their life. Her theme this year is “Let Jesus Shine in 2009”. Hokey, catchy, whatever… you’ll remember it, right?

That got me thinking about what it means to allow our light to shine. Much has been written in about Jesus bringing a light to a dark world. That light shines in us if we accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior. But what does it really mean to allow that light to shine in our life? How do we reflect that concept in our daily life?

Obviously there are some high-profile examples like Mother Teresa, but what does it look like in our normal everyday life? It could be something as always being a positive influence in your immediate circle of friends. It means doing the right thing when nobody is looking. It means loving those who treat you badly. It means helping those who can’t help themselves. It means being humble and caring. It means forgiving those who offend you. Basically – it’s acting differently than the rest of the world.

It reminds me of a story I read recently. Lee Strobel was an atheist. He married a fun loving girl the everything was fine until his wife became a Christian. He started noticing a change in her. He had to admit that something was different about her. As a journalist, he set out to disprove Jesus. During his two year investigation of the evidence of Jesus, he became a Christian. He is now one of the leading apologists for Christ, writing books entitled, God’s Outrageous Claims, The Case for Christmas, The Case for Easter, What Jesus Would Say, among others. But it was the difference he noticed in his wife’s life that prompted him to seek further. He saw her light.